Impressive Farmer Innovation: FarmTRX Yield Data Management System. SK's Perry Casson

[joedales]

Hi Everyone,

One of the very cool things I get to do is meet farmers from all over the world and I am always blownaway by how innovative and creative people can be.

I wanted to introduce Perry Casson who farms in SK but is also a very innovative technology entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Ottawa based technology company TROO Corp.

Perry wanted to capture his farm's crop yield data so he developed FarmTRX yield monitor system that uses your smart phone to save field yield data to a secure cloud platform.

Check out the FarmTRX website at http://www.farmtrx.com www.FarmTRX.com

FarmTRX has a limited number of systems available for sale now for this year's harvest.

Here is a video of Perry showing how to install the sensors.

[monte]

Has anyone tried this product or is it that new?

[workboots]

From the site
“It uses optical sensors mounted on the clean grain elevator to measure yield, which are much more robust, serviceable, & user friendly than impact plate style sensors.“

You’d think dust would collect on the lense?

Or a better question is why is this method better then any other for retrofit yield data collection technology?

It’s would be nice if entrepreneurs would more often showcase interesting innovations on agriville and help Inform us about the product in a Question and answer type format.

This is the ideal platform for that sort of sharing of information.

[workboots]

How are the open ag guys doing? I like the model of free open software or Pay for some hardware and I’ll look after your data type models. We all know Farmers have enough capital tricking out to every me me my intellectual property right flag waving technology company in the industry.

[saskshafe]

From the site
“It uses optical sensors mounted on the clean grain elevator to measure yield, which are much more robust, serviceable, & user friendly than impact plate style sensors.“

You’d think dust would collect on the lense?

Or a better question is why is this method better then any other for retrofit yield data collection technology?

It’s would be nice if entrepreneurs would more often showcase interesting innovations on agriville and help Inform us about the product in a Question and answer type format.

This is the ideal platform for that sort of sharing of information.

Same idea as the Claas system. Works pretty well on them. Get a hold of them and try one out, I hear the system and the cloud based storage can do some pretty cool things, especially when using more than one machine in the field. Also very affordable by what I hear.

[tweety]

Most combines have yield monitoring already, why not just read the existing CanBus data?

[Northofthenumber3]

Have had the prototypes on my combines for the last 4 years, a real simple way to retrofit a combine with a yield monitor just drill 2 3/4" holes on each side of the clean grain elevator and splice into 12v power. I like the optical sensors over the pressure plate I havnt had to clean them yet and have heard lots of horror stories of guys having there pressure plate gumming up and having to clean them everyday. The data transfer is fast and simple by the time you can say "compact flash to USB adapter" the yield data is sent to the cloud and the maps are processed and ready to view in the web platform. And at $1500 I didnt even bothered fixing the yield monitor on our CR9060 just installed the FarmTRX yield monitor.

[workboots]

Yeild maps will be a really valuable data point over time. Being able to see how fields perform in comparison to others over the years. Some good data on seasonal climate variables along with soil moisture data to go with the maps. Start doing some in season second application fertilizer trials.

You will really start to see how a farmer will be able to hit that true yield potential, or at least know what he might be missing out on by not going out with a second application.

Get the Autonomous dribble bander going in June and boost that canola 10 bu/acre because with your data over time and a bit of analytics you have knowledge of the high statistical probability of a yield bump.

This guessing game thing in farming is nearing its end. I just hope the benefits of precision agriculture will go to the farmers more then the corporations that will likely seek to create a new standard scale of efficiency (example: hybrid licenced genetics) and then take 90% of the marginal improvement in net returns.

When I see farmers building these tools I have hope.

[pourfarmer]

**** any cloud based data collection system, you guys are paying to fatten some traders wallet!!!

[sumdumguy]

Agree Pour farmer, I think you are just giving away information - and paying to do it. The grain wagon has a scale on it and I know how many bushels I have. I don’t need somebody else calculating for me nor digesting the information. Good try!

[Northofthenumber3]

The data is stored on the cloud only if you want it to be uploaded and is not shared or sold to anyone. So if you just want a in cab display for yield you dont have to upload I think it could roughly store 10 years of yield data from my farm right in the monitor. But if you want to make maps you can choose to clean up and process the data yourself or just upload and let them do all the work. The web app is easy to use and the post calibration tool is a life saver when you have 3 combines in the field and dont have them quite calibrated the same.

[redleaf]

The data is stored on the cloud only if you want it to be uploaded and is not shared or sold to anyone. So if you just want a in cab display for yield you dont have to upload I think it could roughly store 10 years of yield data from my farm right in the monitor. But if you want to make maps you can choose to clean up and process the data yourself or just upload and let them do all the work. The web app is easy to use and the post calibration tool is a life saver when you have 3 combines in the field and dont have them quite calibrated the same.

This sounds like what all farmers should opt for and stop giving away our yields to “Big Data”.
I would be interested in any other comments about these units including proper calibration which is a common complaint of other yield monitors. Especially for someone like myself who does not presently own a grain cart with onboard scales for verification.

[Northofthenumber3]

This sounds like what all farmers should opt for and stop giving away our yields to “Big Data”.
I would be interested in any other comments about these units including proper calibration which is a common complaint of other yield monitors. Especially for someone like myself who does not presently own a grain cart with onboard scales for verification.

What I did last year was just combined a full hopper and figured out what the percent error was applied that to my cal factor and that got me +/- 5bu/ac for the year. Then after harvest I just punched in how many bu you got off a field in the web app then it will calibrate from that.

[joedales]

Hi Everyone,

I got an online demo yesterday of the FarmTRX system.

Very impressive for a Canadian farmer run independent technology firm...farmer/technology genius and innovation at its best.

If you have an older combine and want to capture your yield data I suggest giving them a call, they mentioned they still have a few more kits available.

http://www.Farmtrx.com www.FarmTRX.com


I am so impressed I have asked Perry Casson to speak at the Farms.com Precision Ag Conference in Saskatoon on November 15 & 16.

http://www.Farms.com/PrecisionAgWest www.Farms.com/PrecisionAgWest

If you want to check it out.

Have a safe harvest,

Joe Dales

[wd9]

This sounds like what all farmers should opt for and stop giving away our yields to “Big Data”.
I would be interested in any other comments about these units including proper calibration which is a common complaint of other yield monitors. Especially for someone like myself who does not presently own a grain cart with onboard scales for verification.

I think farmers get hung up on the resolution of the yield - the actual yield is it exact vs what is the relative yield place to place in the field. That's where yield data is valuable. With crop density known from a good sample you can very accurately determine yield from bin volume.

Joe, do you know if just the hardware is available for purchase? Wonder if the data could be integrated into AgOpenGPS creating a map directly along with guidance, autoheadland, automous and machine control features it already has.